Don't you dare forget me
by silverseed
Summary: The Uchiha love wholeheartedly and more than anyone else. But who said that that love was healthy?
Disclaimer: I am not Japanese, nor is my last name Kishimoto so, sadly, I can't own Naruto

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She had not been well. Her boyfriend had been acting strange, her mother kept insisting for her to quit life as a shinobi and become a housewife, the Jounin Trials wouldn't accept her application until she had more experience... Oh, and also the little detail of her family planning a coup to overthrow the Hokage.

It was maddening, because she knew that the day was approaching when she would have to fight against those some part of her still thought of as comrades, friends and companions. She would have to betray their trust, and she could not confide about her angish because she was Uchiha, and she was suppossed to be strong and put the clan above all else. And if she didn't, becoming a housewife would be the kindest fate her family would allow her.

It wasn't as if they expected anything else from her. She was a woman, so the most they would ask was for her to give birth to lots of little genius Uchiha and to take care of their precious heir. It was as if she had lost her worth as an individual when she started going out with Itachi. Suddenly, she wasn't a clanswoman anymore, she was a wife-to-be. Even if she was thirteen.

Everybody in the clan and in the village worshipped the ground Itachi walked on. He was "the genius of a generation", "the hope of the Uchiha Clan", yadda, yadda, yadda. Sometimes she amused herself imagining the faces the Elders would make if they discovered that the only reason Itachi had agreed to go out with her was that she was one of the few who _didn't_ revere his every word.

But even if he deemed her smart enough, pretty enough, strong enough to be by his side, she knew that most people didn't share that opinion. She could see with startling clarity a future in which Uchiha Itachi was revered and held as a legend, and her name wouldn't ever be mentioned. She would be the wife history books had a footnote about, the mother of the incredible geniuses (for how could Itachi produce anything but perfection?) that would have outshined everyone but their father. She allowed herself a small snort at the idea that Itachi would become the man nobody would shut up about, and she would be a trick question on history exams.

* * *

When the first shouts were heard that night and she ran out of her house she felt a strong need to burst out laughing histerically. So _that_ was the reason. The cold behaviour, the strange questions of her loyality, the occassional sad glances... Itachi wasn't doubting her devotion to the Uchiha Clan. He was trying to make her change sides.

She stood still on her spot, watching stupidly without moving a muscle. That was the "genius" and the "hope" of the Uchiha Clan. Slaughtering his own family. Killing and battling against them just so he wouldn't have to kill and battle against the village. That was it? That was the "alternative" he had told her must exist when the coup was being planned? He really didn't have other way of preserving his precious peace? Because she was no fool. She knew that he despised conflict. But turning against his blood? Causing conflict and death even worse than the one he was avoiding? That was the only thing the so-called "genius of a generation" had been able to think of?

Itachi's sharingan locked with her eyes, briefly, clinically, before turning against his other opponents and resuming the fight. She knew that look. "Not moving, not a threat, continue". He was treating this like a mission. No doubts, no regrets, no feelings.

Suddeny, a spike of anger shook her body. Anger at Itachi, for not being able to stop this any other way. Anger at the Clan, for treating its members like disposable tools, for assigning everybody a role and forbidding disense. At the village, for creating this situation in the first place.

At herself, for being unable to see what was in front of her. For letting herself die uselessly and be forgotten.

Because she knew that she was going to die. Itachi wouldn't spare her. Not her, not anyone. He would fulfill his mission and live regretting his choices. And a dark part of her was glad. Glad that he wouldn't be able to forget. Glad that he would suffer for his sin. Glad that _he_ would remember.

... And why not? Why not tell him? She could make him miserable forever. She could bare her heart and tell him the truth, tell him those words she had never spoken. Hurt him more and deeper than anyone had ever managed. Her memory would become a cold knife lodged deep inside his heart, she could become a wound he would never manage to heal.

Itachi went back to her, walking calmly, his face an expressionless mask. She hadn't moved from her spot. She didn't move either when he started the swing of his sword, though she did look him in the eye. She looked at him and _smiled_ , cruel and feral and underneath it all fond. And when the sword was almost on her neck, when it was far too late for him to stop or to tell her something for the last time, she spoke. And she told him the truth that would make sure her death would burn his insides and make him agonize for the rest of his life.

\- _"I love you"_

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 **A/N:**... Well, that was dark.

I don't really know what possessed me to write something so depressing, I just realized that "Tobi" mentioned to Sasuke that Itachi had killed his own lover, so this piece sort of popped into my head.

Funny thing is, I don't think their relationship (as I imagined it) was all that unhealthy. It was all circumstance... guess that love, in the end, can't conquer _quite_ all.


End file.
